Madison: repierced,infected,removed

By Anonymous · Aug. 15, 1999

tate from time to time, I have since I was seven. I sit very
straight and very still and I close my eyes and breathe. In my mind's
eye I see a golden column flowing from the center of the world through
my body, bisecting me, and continuing up to the infinity of space. I
have a fixation on my center line. I've adorned it as best I can.
I lacked a Madison. This thought hit me one Friday night, I wasn't in
the mood for something as simple as a Madison, I was in the mood for
something large gauged and painful, but when I called my piercer, Kevin,
the words that came out were, "I want to get a Madison tomorrow". At
the time I had a loose standing appointment on Saturdays, but always
thought it polite to inform him before hand what was on my mind.
I arrived late, at the tail end of a slow Saturday. I'd brought along
Christie, my modification moral support more out of habit than out of
need. My piercer, my friend, myself, and a few people I'd run into
downstairs who wanted to watch entered the piercing room. I took my
normal position in the piercing chair (Indian style, I like it that way)
only to be admonished to stand so he could mark me. Cleaned, marked,
and consulted on the placement, I was allowed to sit once again. Kevin
reclined the chair and I went horizontal with it. He asked me if I was
ready, and I nodded yes, he turned around to change gloves and get the
needle, and I continued my conversation. He removed the needle and
jewelry from their autoclave packets as I conversed with the onlookers
crowding the doorway. He turned around and put the lubricated needle at
the mark for the entrance point. I felt the point resting against my
skin and the hand not holding the needle resting lightly where the exit
point was to be, I was mid-sentence and assumed he'd let me finish. But
apparently I looked ready to him. The needle went in and out all in the
space of one word. A cork was on and the jewelry (14 ga cbr) quickly
followed the needle through the new hole and I was soon on my way to
dinner with Christie.
I changed on my way to dinner to comply with the dress code, knocking
the bead loose; during dinner it popped out and was lost. I was not in
a restaurant that allowed its patrons to grub around the carpet looking
for a lost bit of body jewelry. If I'd been at home replacing the bead
would have been nothing, but I was staying about an hour away where body
jewelry was not abundant. Medical tape was used to secure the ring to
my body, but when I awoke I found the tape had been ineffective. Two
thin trails of blood marked where the ring had been.
I talked to my piercer on Monday, and swung by on Wednesday to repierce,
by that time all trace of the original Madison was gone. The next day
while playing with my dog the Madison was licked and otherwise saturated
with dog germs. That evening, despite a thorough washing moments after
the piercing came in contact with the piercing, redness and swelling
occurred. That was followed by a trip on Friday to my family doctor who
was overjoyed at finally having "proof" that body piercing was evil (at
one point or another he's declared all of my piercings infected, even
though I'm pretty sure the Madison is the first to actually be
infected). I endured yet another lecture before receiving my
prescriptions and beating a hasty retreat out the door.
Ten days followed where I faithfully took my oral antibiotic and applied
a topical antibiotic (Bactroban) three times a day. For the first three
days of treatment the piercing was very, very swollen and where the ring
ran beneath my skin there was an angry looking red crescent. Thick,
gross milky yellow goo oozed out, copious amounts, insane amounts of
ooze leaked out. Starting on the forth day the swelling started to
disappear and the volume of liquid coming from the piercing decreased
until finally nothing but the redness remained. I called my doctor and
was advised to continue treatment for five more days. It was still red
at the entrance and exit points after five more days, so I went back in
to my doctor (for yet another lecture!) only to be told it wasn't
infected anymore. My piercer, who thought infection via dog spit was
funny, suggested rejection as the reason behind the redness, but the
piercing didn't seem to be going anywhere, so I left it in.
Three months passed, the redness remained, a source of constant worry.
Nothing helped, but then again, nothing happened. Nothing gross oozed
out, and it didn't look like it had moved, there wasn't any scar tissue
from where the ring had receded, and it was still pretty deeply set.
But it looked like something was wrong, so I thought about it and
decided to take it out. I'm still not sure why it stayed red, maybe if
I'd left it in until it was healed, or at least a little older, it would
have gone away on its own, but I was nervous and impatient.
A day after taking the piercing out the color of my skin is the same
light brown it is elsewhere. Two small scabs mark where a ring once
rested. It looks like I was bitten by a vampire. Beneath my skin I feel
the flesh tunnel that had been forming and I'm sad(regretful?) to have
lost my Madison for the second time. There's a great deal of beauty in
the Madison and I miss having it adorning me. Once the scar tissue
absorbs sufficiently, I'll have it redone.

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Details

submitted by: Anonymouson: 15 Aug. 1999in
Surface & Unusual Piercing

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Artist: Kevin+ThomasStudio: Uptown+DowntownLocation: Greenville%2C+SC

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